Yesterday, the official X (formerly Twitter) account for the United States White House published a video promoting its ongoing strikes on Iran, which contained footage and UI elements from Microsoft and Activision's popular shooter franchise, Call of Duty.
The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran this past weekend, which recent reports estimate have resulted in 1,230 casualties.
Amidst the responses to the video, which began with Call of Duty footage followed by real-life footage of the strikes, Chance Glasco, one of the original founders of Infinity Ward and developer on Call of Duty said that the video was not a "surprise" for him based on an experience he shares about his time with the franchise when Activision took more direct control over the series following the departure of Respawn co-founders, the late Vince Zampella and Jason West.
"This doesn't surprise me," Glasco began in his response. "I remember after Activision took over post-Respawn formation there was a very awkward pressure from Activision for us to make the next CoD about Iran attacking Israel. Luckily the vast majority of our devs were disgusted by the idea and it got shot down."
Responding to other users on X who were asking Glasco about some of the more infamous moments in Call of Duty's history, like the original Modern Warfare 2's 'No Russian' level, Glasco pointed out that the original Infinity Ward team consistently wanted to make the point that "war is hell and not just a video game."
"If you play the earlier IW CoDs you'll definitely see that throughout the series. We wanted players to feel disgust and we purposefully sought to make them actually feel bad for war. We focus tested the level before release and an extremely high percentage of players just froze when they realized what they thought they were supposed to do. Some of them put the controller down and said they didn't want to play it. This to me is a much better reaction than 100% of players just going Leroy Jenkins on the level with no emotion at all."
Glasco goes a step further in another reply, elaborating that his point is "that the government would happily use entertainment, including video games, as a way to sway public opinion on major issues. There have been decades of pressure for a war with Iran across multiple administrations."
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the most recent entry in the series, lost out on being the best-selling game of 2025 to Battlefield 6, but was the best-selling game in the United States for December 2025 and January 2026.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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